Sands Bethlehem Event Center’s new balcony opened last week with the May 1 concert by Danish heavy metal band Volbeat, and Lehigh Valley Music got a view from inside for the concert by matchbox twenty singer Rob Thomas a night later.

Here are our impressions of the new seating area:

Rob Thomas at Sands Bethlehem Event CenterView from the new VIP balcony suites

The balcony adds five more luxury suites, with total seating capacity of 149 people, to the venue.

Our overall first impression is that these aren’t the best seats in the house, but some of them are very good.

The first thing about the seats that makes an impression is the view.

The front-most balcony extends 22 feet out from the wall, over the existing elevated wing section. In the front-most box, you’re essentially right above the stage, 15 feet up. It’s not as good as the event center’s floor-seat front rows, or even the front-most seats on the elevated wings, but still very good.

These photos, for example, represent the view for Thomas’s show.

We had concern that one of the center’s big screens, located just above the box, would be distracting, but it’s not. In fact, it’s actually to look up at it for a closer view sometimes.

The seating in the new balcony is padded folding chairs – more comfortable than the floor seats, but far less comfortable than the wonderfully padded seats in the luxury boxes at the rear of the event center.

Rob Thomas on the big screen from the new balcony

Officials said the folding chairs were used so they could be mobile and shifted for events that use the center floor – boxing and mixed martial arts, for example. It seems the view for such events would be just as good.

One complaint is that the folding seats, tethered at an angle for front-stage shows, are too close together. It felt crowded. The rear seats in the boxes actually are raised stools, and offer a little more seating room and just as good a view.

At the back of the boxes are raised counters – and it actually is kind of nice to have somewhere to stand and stretch during a performance without losing good viewing lines.

The balcony extends the will run the 135-foot length of the wall, and in boxes that are farther back, the view still was good. But because the new balcony is “tiered,” with smaller boxes with fewer seats toward the back, the view can be obstructed.

The new balcony, while under construction, as viewed from the stage

From those seats, I couldn’t see Thomas when he went to the extreme edge of the stage, especially when people in other boxes were standing.

There are other pluses besides the view and comfort.

As with the other luxury boxes, the new balcony offers free beer, wine, soda and light snacks (there were chips on the counters for Thomas). But unlike the stocked coolers in the original boxes, for the new balcony, you have to go out to the luxury suites bar to get drinks.

But, again, it’s included in your ticket price. If you have two drinks, you’ve covered the additional ticket price. Officials have said there eventually may be wait service, officials have said.

The new boxes also offer use of the upstairs rest rooms, which are far more convenient and less crowded.

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JOHN J. MOSER has been around long enough to have seen the original Ramones in a small club in New Jersey, U2 from the fourth row of a theater and Bob Dylan's born-again tours. But he also has the number for All-American Rejects' Nick Wheeler on his cell phone, wrote the first story ever done on Jack's Mannequin and hung out in Wiz Khalifa's hotel room.

OTHER CONTRIBUTORS

JODI DUCKETT: As The Morning Call's assistant features editor responsible for entertainment, she spends a lot of time surveying the music landscape and sizing up the Valley's festivals and club scene. She's no expert, but enjoys it all — especially artists who resonated in her younger years, such as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Tracy Chapman, Santana and Joni Mitchell.

KATHY LAUER-WILLIAMS enjoys all types of music, from roots rock and folk to classical and opera. Music has been a constant backdrop to her life since she first sat on the steps listening to her mother’s Broadway LPs when she was 2. Since becoming a mother herself, she has become well-versed on the growing genre of kindie rock and, with her son in tow, can boast she has seen a majority of the current kid’s performers from Dan Zanes to They Might Be Giants.

STEPHANIE SIGAFOOS: A Jersey native raised in Northeast PA, she was reared in a house littered with 8-tracks, 45s and cassette tapes of The Beatles, Elvis, Meatloaf and Billy Joel. She also grew up on the sounds of Reba McEntire, Garth Brooks and Tim McGraw and can be found traversing the countryside in search of the sounds of a steel guitar. A fan of today's 'new country,' she digs mainstream/country-pop crossovers like Lady Antebellum and Sugarland and other artists that illustrate the genre's diversity.